Righteous (PL)

Basia – a young nurse falls in love with engineer Stefan Kowalski, who becomes one of the major figures in a net of underground fighters, helping Jewish families to survive in the German occupied Warsaw during WWII. They marry and together act to save as many people as possible. Over 50 years later, in contemporary Warsaw, Barbara gets the medal “Righteous among the Nations” from the Ambassador of Israel, but insists on going to Jerusalem for the formal ceremony in spite of concerns of her son, worrying about the state of her health. Both the time periods, WWII and nowadays, are put together as they mingle in Barbara’s remembrances and reflections on people, history and decency. Gradually, they unveil complex bounds between the past and the present, and show that the picture of a hero presented in history books and the media has frequently an additional, unexpected dimension.